


This Time of Darkness - Spencer's Journal

by TheKnittingLady



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Eating Disorders, F/M, Genital Torture, M/M, Multi, Other, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Rape, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2013-01-20
Packaged: 2017-11-20 16:19:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 14
Words: 20,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/587334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheKnittingLady/pseuds/TheKnittingLady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An addendum to This Time of Darkness.  These are the darker scenes some might find too uncomfortable to read and so are separate from the main narrative.  You do not need to read this to follow the main story, but it does add to the text.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Journal Entry 01

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings: Implied slash, non-consentual sexual contact, bodily functions, abuse

**Prep room 4**  
 **Storage Facility 3**  
 **Capitol City**  
 **Little Sister**

**Spencer**

The lift lowered him to a waiting transport cart, one that rode on a track on the floor.  The sheer size of the operation astounded him.  From the bottom he could see that the cages were stacked eight high and twelve across, making 192 of them in this hall.  One hundred and ninety two victims trapped in this system.  But why?  Why? 

The cart zipped him along the space between the two walls of cages and through a door into a hallway.  None of the loading dock doors were labeled but each had some kind of data sensor at the door.  Of course if the only humans who came through here were caged prisoners then no label would be needed, the machinery used other languages.  It was highly efficient, Spencer realized, on one level he almost admired it.

 

 The cart slowed and stopped at one loading dock.  It automatically shoved his cage on to the dock and into some kind of a track system.  The cage was pulled in to the room and the loading door shut behind him.  As he was turning to look around the room the front of the cage lifted up, revealing a painfully clean room, brightly lit, empty, with an odd looking half wall on the far side.  It had three semi-circular cutouts across the top, and in front of it were two low platforms.

_Step forward._   Said a recorded voice as some lights lit up on the half wall and the platforms. 

Spencer stepped over to the wall, curious.  Beneath the larger cutout in the center was a lit up picture of an outstretched head.  Beneath each of the smaller cutouts was a picture of a hand.  And on each of the platforms was the outline of a foot print.  The meaning was simple, feet here, hands here, neck here.  “Um, hello?  I’m not going to do this.”  Surely there had to be someone here to talk to.

Slowly he began to be aware of an odd warm sensation in the soles of his feet.  The sensation grew until it pulled his attention.  Metal, he thought as his feet started to tingle, it’s all metal.  The implications of that were quick to form as his feet started to truly hurt.  Within moments he was jumping up and down as the floor was electrified.  He quickly jumped on the platforms to get away from the pain.  But even that was no good, after a moment the lights on the half wall began to flash, and then the platforms began to grow warm.  He tried putting a toe down only to get a nasty shock, even as the platforms were getting warmer.  There really was no help for it, he put his neck and arms in the cutouts, and as expected the top of the wall came down, sealing him in the stocks. 

What he hadn’t expected was the soft yet snug collar that sealed around his neck and wrists, or that something metallic would close around his feet.  Now he was trapped there, his head and hands in a dark box, the rest of him back in that room.  “Hello?”  He called out again.  “Somebody?”  There was a little light coming in from the top, but it was still small in there. 

A servo whirred, a gizmo came down, and all of a sudden a sharp stream of cold water was spraying him in the face.

He gasped and choked, trying to catch his breath.  The hose circled around, growing sharper as it played over his scalp, sharp enough to be almost painful as it blew its way through his hair.  When it was finished he was probably cleaner, any soil would have been simply blasted away.  After a few the hose shut off, giving Spencer just enough time to catch his breath before another gizmo, this one a small, black ball was presented before him.   _Open mouth._   The recorded voice said.

“No.”

_Open mouth_.  The black ball pressed lightly against his lips.

Spencer didn’t move.

_Open mouth._   It pressed harder, mashing his lips against his teeth.

You couldn’t profile a machine.  You couldn’t reason with it or frighten it or beg it for mercy.  Unable to fight Spencer opened his mouth.  It neatly entered and began spraying his teeth and gums with a cold, minty solution.  After a few moments it switched to water, and then ended with a spray on the outside of his face as he spit what had to be a cleansing solution away.

_Close mouth._   The recorded voice said as a small screen came to life in front of him and showed him a mouth with tightly folded in lips.   _Close eyes._ He did so and heard another servo whirr to life.  It sprayed what felt like a thick, chemical foam all over the lower half of his face and then began a gentle ticking down.  He waited while the foam began to grow warm and then to start to burn a little.  As soon as it was just progressing to itching the hose came back and blasted it all away from his now tender face.  I bet that takes care of shaving, he thought.  Now what?

That question was soon answered.  He felt his feet move farther apart, until he practically had to cling to the wall to keep from falling.  Then he felt gentle touches of heat and rough metallic claws as his clothing was laser cut and peeled away.  It was all taken, from his tie to his sweater to his pants, all gone until he was completely naked, and shivering slightly in the chilly room.  He yelled out as he felt the first sharp jet of cold water start to play over his skin, rinsing any dirt or soil from his body.  He yelled out again as the blast didn’t miss an inch and pounded the delicate places, the sides of his neck, beneath his arms, behind his knees, around his genitals.  He stood there when it was done, dripping, shaking, wanting desperately to close his legs and stand but unable to fight the machine that held him.

The next machine started up.  He felt that thick, chemical foam blasted all over his body, everywhere, from the tops of his feet to his forearms to his chest, everywhere you could think of, including around his genitals.  He stood there, simmering through the warmth and then the burn and then the itch.  Just as he was about to try calling out again the hose came out and blasted it all away, taking all of his body hair with it.  Not that he was all that hairy to begin with, but realizing just how open and vulnerable he was made it all the harder to go without that covering.

For its next step the machine lifted some kind of platform up off the floor and pressed it into his lower chest, forcing him against the restraints.  Spencer hollered out a protest as his neck started bending at an unnatural angle and the pressure tightened on his ankles, but it didn’t take him far.  The real pain was in the center of his back a moment later as it felt like something was being burned into his skin.  He screamed and tried to twist away but he was being held far too tightly.  After a moment something cool blasted over the now sore spot and he was lowered back to his feet.

The next part was the part that he had been both expecting and dreading.  He felt something nestling between his buttocks, then something cool and thick, thankfully, before it started pressing deeper.  Much like the ball at his mouth he knew there was no way to avoid this, all he could do was relax and try to help it work its way in.  It was a deeply disturbing sensation, while he had read about alternative sexuality he had never experienced it himself, and did not in any way, shape or form consider himself gay.  But this machine was clearly preparing him for anal sex, not just by way of the intrusion but with the cold water that began filling his stomach, making him swell to the point of pain and then triggering nasty stomach cramps.  After he gritted his teeth and endured what felt like forever he felt the hose withdrawn and felt it play over his skin as he released, then he felt the pressure of its entry again.  Four times in all he was filled and emptied, until he felt husked, raw and empty and far, far too open.

But the machine was not done.  He felt something surround his penis, gripping it firmly with a strong suction and drawing it down and away from his body and into something barely yielding and very tight.  Then he felt a sharp probing at the tip.  “No.  No.  No no no no no….”  But it was no use.  He shrieked as the probe pushed its way up his urethra, stretching it painfully, scratching along the route, until he felt a pop deep inside his body.  Then he felt a curious release as his bladder was emptied and then the probe slithered free.

Now that he was completely naked, clean inside and out, hairless from the eyebrows down, and somehow marked, Spencer felt some kind of collar and cuffs slither around his neck and wrists.  As the wall opened the cables between the collar and cuffs and the device mounted on a track in the ceiling drew his wrists together behind his back, just under the still smarting spot, and then tugged him by the neck toward a door that opened just for him.


	2. Journal Entry 02

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: Non-consentual sexual content, slash content, violence, abuse

**Testing Room 2**   
**Program Facility 3**   
**Capitol City**   
**Little Sister**

**Spencer**

The robotic leash attached to the ceiling guided him down the empty corridor.  It was not particularly fast or slow, but it was relentless, and it was just short enough to make him want to walk on the balls of his feet, to allow him no slack to pull away.  If I fall, he thought, this will cut off my oxygen supply.  I’ll probably have some kind of brain damage before anyone gets to me; if anyone gets to me.  I’d better not fall.

He didn’t fall.

 The machine led him into a small, dimly lit room and smoothly guided him around a piece of furniture, backed him up against or in to it.  As he was pulled back far enough another leash must have shot out of the piece of furniture itself.  It connected with the collar at the back of his neck and pulled him down into the seat.  No, not a seat, more of a framework that required balance; but even as he realized that his wrists were taken, separated, and guided out to arms where he could hold on, and where he was fastened down, and then other restraints came out and encircled his thighs and calves, pinning him down securely onto the frame.  Lastly another, wider band encircled his ribcage a few inches below his pecs and a very narrow frame wrapped around his forehead.

In this position he was open and helpless.  He was also forced to look at a monitor in front of him, and at a bank of camera lenses pointed at various places on his body.  “Hello?”  He called out, given that he was being monitored.  “I don’t know what’s going on.  I think there’s been a mistake….”  Someone?  Anyone?

Given what Kira had told him, the sudden sensation of something cool being squirted into the crack of his buttocks only came as a surprise because it was sudden.  The pressure of something wanting entrance a moment later was not a surprise.  It was no larger than the nozzle, although it went somewhat deeper.  He was also not surprised when it started prodding the area where, like most men, his prostrate lay, or when he reacted to the stimulation.  That’s normal, he told himself, embarrassing as all hell but it’s a normal physiological reaction.  It has no connection to my emotional state at all. I don’t want this, but they’re stimulating nerve clusters and so it’s happening.  It’s no worse than reacting during the annual physical.

He was not surprised when a tube rose out of the machine and sucked him in, at which point the other thing withdrew, but he was surprised to find that the sensation was almost pleasant.  It was warm, slick, and had a bit of a rippling or throbbing effect, clearly designed to mimic the human female.  He truly, deeply, did not want to give whoever was on the other side of those cameras the pleasure of actually seeing him enjoy this, and would fight his own reactions to prevent that, but at least the pain was minimal so far.  It was embarrassing, true, but the only people he cared about who would ever know was Emily when she came to get him, and Kira who would understand, and any doctor or healer he chose to see, so that would be manageable.  The Unsubs on the other side of those cameras would see, but those were Unsubs, or so he thought of them, and that just happened sometimes.  That couldn’t be helped.  The sheath finally finished getting him fully hard, and then he felt something come up and lightly cup his scrotum, and then the light went out.

He had just enough time to consider panicking when a brighter spotlight went on, bathing him in unavoidable light.  The servos in the cameras whizzed to life, and then the monitor started up.  It went through some kind of start up, but he couldn’t make out the details without his glasses.  Eventually, though, it settled into a graphic.  A graphic that looked like a graph, with the Y axis at the left labeled for three rows, and a limit line on the right corresponding with something on the X axis.  But without his glasses he couldn’t read the labels.

All of a sudden the screen flashed and the bars started growing what might have been a set of numbers on the screen started counting.  I know what this is, he thought, I know what I’m seeing.  It was one of those tip of the tongue things that he couldn’t quite make out.  What is this?  I know this, I know it!

He watched as slowly, in fits and starts, the bars grew.  When the center bar reached the limit line it flashed and disappeared and there was another cold squirt of gel, and then the pressure of entrance again.  This time it was considerably larger, large enough for him to have to stretch around it, large enough to cause pain at first and then heavy discomfort.  He gritted his teeth and tried to relax back there as it started working in and out.  Okay, he thought, trying to take his mind off what was happening by analyzing the situation, the graph reaches the limit line and something happens, that means the numbers reach a certain total and this happens and the numbers reset.  But what’s controlling the numbers?

After a few moments, that stopped, and withdrew, thankfully.  That bar started growing again, but even as it did the top bar crossed the line.  The sheath around his penis came to life, warm and rippling and sucking gently in a likely pattern.  That was objectively worse than the other because it actually felt good.  It felt good in new and remarkable ways.  Is this what a girl is supposed to feel like, he thought?  Except this isn’t a girl, and I don’t want them to see me enjoying this.  But what if it was a girl?  What if it was, say, Lila or Austen or even, yes, maybe Kira?  What if she was enjoying herself too and…something in the sheath moved and caught him just so as he was picturing a warm, curvy body and sweet little moans and he gasped and started doing math in his head, trying to focus on anything but the sensation.

By the time that was over the middle bar was nearing the limit line again.  He had a few minutes to ponder the graph in front of him before it started up again.  The two bars went back and forth, now this one greater, now the other one, as his body was stimulated this way and that, until finally, as much as he hated to admit it, the idea of release started growing on him.  Not here, really, and not now, but later, when he was back in that storage facility, maybe when Kira was asleep, he could tuck into the far corner and release some of the growing pressure without her being aware.  It wasn’t like he could help it; it was strictly a mechanical thing.

Then the lower bar crossed the limit line.  He heard the servos whirring as the cameras refocused, and then whatever had been cupping his testicles clamped down hard and twisted.

Spencer screamed.  If he didn’t know better he’d say a vital portion of his anatomy had just been torn off.  It was only when it was quickly twisted the other way that he realized that it hadn’t.  He started fighting the system for the first time, bucking and thrashing to try to get free but it was no use.  For the same amount of time that the others had gone off he was caught in a relentless metallic clench, pulled on and twisted as he screamed with the pain of it all.  Finally it let go but did not pull back.  He collapsed against the chair, sweat pouring off of him, sobbing hoarse cries.

And then the middle bar reached the limit line and he was penetrated again, causing him to once again fill the sheath even as he groaned.

Maybe that was a onetime thing, he thought.  Maybe that won’t happen again.  But as he watched, that lower line started growing, much faster than it had a first.  Not only was it going to happen again, it was going to happen sooner, and probably more often before he got out of here, and he heard himself whimpering and pleading with them, no, no, no, and he heard the servos whirr again.

All of a sudden he knew what this was.

All of a sudden he knew what this was and it chilled him to the bone. 

All of a sudden he didn’t think he could do this anymore.

And then the limit line was crossed once again.


	3. Journal entry 03

## 

**Medical Room 6**   
**Program Facility 3**   
**Capitol City**   
**Little Sister**

**Spencer**

It went on for what felt like hours.

 Spencer remained trapped in the machine as it abused his body over and over again, first pain then unwanted pleasure then pain again.  As it went on the computer started allowing combination, some so potent he had to fight not to give in, some so painful he heard himself literally begging for mercy, the tears rolling down his cheeks.  But the machines gave no mercy and he knew now that the people behind this would give none either.

When it was finally over and the restraints that held him to the frame were released he very nearly couldn’t walk.  His backside was bruised and abraded, his penis practically felt skinned and he had an erection that would not go down, but worst of all were his testicles.  They had been swelling along with the abuse and now felt immense, getting in the way when he moved his legs and aching under their own weight when he stood.  He knew there had to be damage in there somehow, that he was probably now infertile at best.  I thought I had time for a family, he thought.  I guess I was wrong.

But there was no time to think.  The machines guided his hands until the magnets in the cuffs on his wrists imprisoned his arms behind his back once again and then the lead came down from the ceiling and started dragging him along by the neck.  Once again it was walk or hang and so he walked, whimpering with the pain of movement.  The machine led him down another empty hallway to another spotlessly clean room where it turned him around and pulled him back onto a table, taking control of his arms and pinning them at his sides.  Spencer looked up into the bright light above him and squinted at the robotic arms above and around it.  All of a sudden he was reminded of the Dr. Who episode where the Cybermen take over, how they converted humans to androids with brutal efficiency, and he understood why they drained his bladder earlier.

The true horror, though, was what happened next.  A hood slid down over his head, sealing snugly around his neck.  He quickly tried to fight the bonds that pinned his arms to the table, but it was no use.  As he fought the hood started filling with gas.  No, he thought, what is it?  What is it?  Brain damage….

Then he thought no more.

* * *

 

 

**Cage 3-3-8**   
**Storage Facility 3**   
**Capitol City**   
**Little Sister**

When Spencer came to he was back in one of the cages, being carried along by the transport cart, back into the large hall full of prisoners.  It took him a moment, but he was able to place the dull, stuffed cotton feeling in his head.  He had been sedated, and he had no clue how long or for what reason.

Once his cage had been lifted and safely tucked back in his cubby he looked over to Kira’s cage only to find that slot empty.  He quickly got a hold of himself before he could panic.  Based on his observations they had probably taken her for cleaning and for an ordeal similar to his, a thought which replaced the panic with cold anger.  Those fucking sons of bitches, she was a human being, how could they…

Because they don’t see her as human, his rational mind told him, or at least not a human worthy of any dignity or rights.  Just like they don’t see you like that either.

No, but there are people out there who do, he reminded himself sternly.  There is your mother and there is Henry, and Garcia and Emily and Morgan and Rossi and…. He made it a litany, picturing each person as he spoke, each person who saw him as a person, an individual, worthy of respect and care and love.  If he buffered himself with those memories, so potent and real, then he might be able to get through this and stay sane.  And he would help Kira do the same.

Balance restored he sat up and looked over his body.  His backside felt back to normal, as if it had been untouched, thankfully.  His testicles were also back to normal size, and there was only a slight pain around his left epididymis to indicate that anything had happened.  And the bruises and scrapes he’d acquired from fighting the restraints were gone.  That said he had lost his erection, finally, but his penis was still red and sore from being overworked.  They healed me, he realized, they healed me and treated my injuries, at least the ones they wanted to treat; probably so they could abuse me again and again and not have to worry about a debilitating injury, but they wanted me to remember what happened, to break me even faster.

Just then he heard the whine of hydraulics and the scrape of metal that announced that Kira’s cage was being put back into place.  This was also the moment when he realized that yes, he was naked and no, there was no place to hide and nothing to put over his body.  He felt the old, familiar panic rising and instinctively covered himself.  Great.  Well, all he could do was take a deep breath and soldier on.  He knew his body was laugh worthy, or had been in high school and to a lesser degree in college, but he hoped that someone who worked in some kind of medical center wouldn’t laugh.  He'd give anything for even a piece of paper right now.

And then he found himself quite glad that his penis was too tired to do more than twitch, because she was naked too.  He told himself that he was just squinting at her to be sure she was still breathing, which she was, but he could also see that she was utterly lovely.  She was his height and seemed to be finely muscled, especially in the arms and shoulders, she was a a bit less curvy than Garcia but more than Emily as well, with rounded hips and a soft belly and ripe, full breasts that…

Twitch.

Get a grip Agent, he told himself firmly.

Kira moaned as the forklift finally dropped her into place, and rolled over on to her stomach only to quickly push herself up on her arms, hissing in pain.  As she rolled on to her hip and covered her breasts with her hands he quickly guessed which injury they hadn’t healed.  “Good morning.”  He said, gently.  “I won’t look if you don’t want me to.”

“Oh!”  She exclaimed, turning to face him.  He couldn’t see her features clearly, but he could see the color wash into her cheeks.  “I don’t…not yet."

Spencer obligingly turned away, even as she rolled onto her back, probably to check for any damage.  “I think they healed us somehow.”  He said.  “Did they put that hood over your head, with the gas?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a sedative.  They put us to sleep with it.”

“I’m familiar.  They use something like that at the abbey, when they have to set a bone.” 

He heard the water coming on in her cell, and figured it was safe to peek.  She had gone to the standpipe and was washing off her hands.  “Are you all right?”

“Don't turn around yet!"  He quickly turned  away.  "Yes, it appears so.  Nothing…there hurts anymore.  Only…”  He heard her hiss as she moved wrong.

“I think they left us each one minor injury so we would be forced to think about what happened.”

"They were cruel is what they were.  All right, it's the best I can do."  He turned as she sighed.  She'd settled close to the metal grating on her side, and had unbraided her hair so it covered her breasts and hung loosely down her back.  “Why did they do it though?”  She asked, despairingly.  “Why have machines to hurt people?  There wasn’t even someone there…”

“Actually there was.”

“No…”

“Do you know what a computer is?”

“No.”

“Do you know what a book is?”

“Yes.”  She nodded and smiled at that.  “They have a huge library at the abbey.  I’ve learned to read and write since I moved there.”

Oh.  “Well, that’s good.  I love books myself.”

She smiled, “You and every other healer.  Most of the Guardian’s don’t bother. But there are so many things to learn, I don’t know why they don’t. I rather enjoy setting courses for myself.”

Oh, she was an autodidactic.  Ohhh.  “I don’t know why either.”  He agreed.  “Well, a computer is in many ways like a book, only computers can be connected with what we call an internet.  So if I write in my book the writing would automatically appear in yours.”  Simplistic explanation, he thought, but it would suffice for the present.

“Oh, that would be a wonderful thing!”

“The other thing you can do with them, relevant to the discussion, is open a kind of a window.  So if I held mine up…”  Spencer pantomimed holding a book up, open to the room.  “…you could see what was in front of my book, like looking through a window.”

“I’d love to see that.”  He could hear the smile in Kira’s voice.

“I wish I could show you.  Did you notice those round, glass things in the walls and ceiling in there?”

“Yes.”

“Those were open windows.  People were watching us through them.”  He saw her jaw drop open at the realization.  “And they were writing in their books in a way the machines could understand, telling the machines what they wanted done to us.  That’s what those glowing lines were on the glass in front of us, every time someone made a note in their book about what they wanted to see the line got bigger and when enough people wanted to see it the machines would do it.”

“How…many people?”

“A lot.  Thousands.”  248,935, at least that was how many votes the computer logged when he squinted at it when he left.

“And they all wanted to watch us being hurt?”

“Yes?”

_“Why?”_

“Because their minds are broken in such a way that they enjoy it.  They…they take sexual pleasure from watching other people being hurt like that.”  Panem et circenses, he thought, bread and games, what pacified Rome.  And they were being fed to the high-tech lions.

“Then they aren’t going to let us go, are they?”  She grasped that quickly.  “The more we beg and plead the more they’ll hurt us because they enjoy making us cry.”

“And if we don’t react they’ll just keep trying more and more to get us to react.”  He agreed with her.  “They won’t let us go until they’re bored with watching us.”

“That’s why they let people go and catch new ones; new people to look at.”  He could hear the emotion in her voice.  “Like rich, spoiled children throwing away toys and grabbing new ones.  That’s all we are now, playthings.  Toys.”

“No.”  That was what he had to head off, that despair.  “They may think that but we know the truth.  We matter.  We matter to the people back home.  Your brother thinks you’re more than a toy, that hasn’t changed, has it?”

“No.  No, he wouldn’t…”

“And I know I matter to my Mother.  I know how proud she’s always been of me; I know how much she loves me.  Me, not just my body, but who I am.”  Spencer took a deep breath.  “Who else knows you?  Who else do you matter to?”

“Well…I don’t…I guess Mother Abbot, and Bosc, and Reka…”

Slowly but surely they built a list of the people who knew them, knew their talents and their weaknesses, the things they were proud of  and the things they were ashamed of, who knew their hopes and their dreams and their nightmares, and who loved and cherished them anyway.  They built a wall of memories to keep out the cold and the horror of what had happened and what was to come.  But finally…”You missed one person.”  Spencer said.

“Who?”  Kira asked.

“Me.  You matter to me.  I wish you weren’t here but I’m also very glad you are.”

She smiled at him.  “I wish you weren’t here but I’m glad too.”  She pushed and wiggled and managed to get one finger through the metal grating.  Just one, and not far, but…

He smiled.  He had always had such long, slender hands, too long and slender for a guy.  But now they stood him in good stead, because he could just manage to get a finger through the holes, and just feel the warmth of her touch. 

And from that moment on they had each other.


	4. Journal Entry 04

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for rape. And I mean that.

**Studio 5a**  
 **Program Facility 3**  
 **Capitol City**  
 **Little Sister**

**Spencer**

They had just enough time to savor the feeling of their fingers curling around each other, of that sweet first touch, however small, when they heard the forklift coming back.  This time it came for Kira.  “Remember who you are, no matter what happens!”  Spencer called to her over the sound of machinery.  “You matter to people!  People love you!”

“I know!” 

She had instinctively scooted to the very back of the cage, animal instincts trying to get her away from the threat.  But now she rolled and all but threw herself against the grating that kept them apart.  “I…” but her cage began to move, pulling her away.

He followed her to the very edge, as far as he could, pressing himself against the front, watching her being carried down and onto a waiting cart.  “No!  No!  Nononono…!”   He howled and pounded on the metal but it was no use, she was being carried off and there was nothing he could do!  Nothing!

No!

While he stood there, growling out his frustration and anger his own cage began to shut down for transport.  He was so upset he didn’t even realize until the cage began to move, knocking him to the floor.  Once again he was lifted down and put on a transport cart and shuttled off to places unknown.  He rolled over and looked up and saw other cages moving this time, other people being lifted up and down.  Busy night, he thought.  Last night we must have been the stars of the show.  Tonight we’re just part of the programming.

As before, the cart took him to the room with the stocks.  This time he didn’t bother to wait for the floor to heat up, he just went and let the room have its way with him.  This time it cleaned his hair and his teeth ,his body and his colon and bladder, but it didn’t remove the still non-existent hair from his body or burn his back.  Instead it presented a large, red ball to his lips when he was done. 

_Open mouth_

The ball felt huge inside his mouth.  He couldn’t close his teeth or even his lips over it.  And then it was fastened behind his head somehow, pushed in snugly so he couldn’t make anything resembling intelligible sounds.  That done he was once again cuffed and collared and pulled out of the room by a lead and into the building, walk or hang.  The machine led him to a large room, clean, with a solid floor and what looked like a solid metal rectangular slab, situated with the narrow end against one wall.  Call that the north wall.  He was dragged through a door in the west wall and into a simple metal chair in the southwest corner that faced the slab, a true chair this time with a true seat, but one where the machine could secure his forearms to the arms of the chair and his calves to the legs.  Once those were in place he wasn’t secured anywhere else. 

Then the western door opened again and Kira was dragged through.

Not only was she dragged right past him but the machine even stopped for a moment so he could take a good look.  Closer, and with no grating in the way, he now knew that she was indeed that beautiful, with a sweet, gentle body made for kisses and cuddles and snuggling under the covers on a cold winter night.  His inner scientist also observed a few anatomical differences, her areolas were wider than most human females, and were puffy, noticably raised from the surface of her breasts and along with her nipples a much deeper shade of rosy pink that could only be from thinner tissue showing more blood flow. Her mons veneris was larger than on a human female, and seemed to ride lower so none of her cleft was visible. But it wasn't until he looked up into her eyes that he yelped through the gag as his heart nearly stopped from the horror.

Her eyes were  _black_. 

“Spencer?”  She asked.  Oh god she couldn’t see.

He made a sound of assent.  She sobbed in reply, but he couldn’t say anything or reach out to comfort her in any way.

When she moved again he could finally see that they weren’t hollow black pits but rather that she was wearing some kind of black contact lenses, lenses that would eliminate her vision but not conceal her face in any way.  The machine guided her around, allowing him to see a pattern of what looked like birthmarks that trailed down her spine to just above the black mark the machine must have put there, and forced her onto her back on the slab, pinning her right arm about her head by the wrist.  And that was all.

“I don’t…I don’t…”  She reached up to try to open the cuff on her wrist.  “Are you there?”  He made a sound of assent.  “They’ve muffled your voice, haven’t they?”  He made the sound again.  “Why?”  He couldn’t have answered that even if he could speak.

Before she could make any headway with the cuff a door in the southeastern corner opened and a man came through.  He suit was cut oddly, but even with that Spencer could tell from that and his state of grooming and what appeared to be the jewelry he was wearing that this was a man of wealth and power.  He smiled at Kira like she was a rich banquet laid out for his pleasure.  He smiled at Kira and Spencer knew exactly what was about to happen.

Last night hadn’t just been a screen test.  It had been an  _auction_.

The man stood there for a long moment, admiring the sight, then he chuckled and pulled off his coat, draping it over the chair in the southeast corner, and undoing he fasteners at his collar and cuffs.  “Ĉu ŝi estas via?”  He asked Spencer, gesturing to Kira.  Spencer didn’t recognize the language but he didn’t have to, he could tell from the tone and the body language that the man was asking if Kira was his, his wife, his lover, his relative, something.  Spencer didn’t react but he knew his expression was giving away what he was just coming to know.

Yes, he was falling for her.

The man laughed and went over to where Kira was still digging frantically at her cuff, and ran his hand up her leg.  “No!”  She screeched, rolling over and swinging a punch in a likely direction.  “Get away from me!”

The man just laughed, running his hand up her torso, over her still bruised breasts and cupping around the back of her neck.  Unfortunately for him that gave her a location.  She screetched, arched away from his hand and swung a well-trained blow and caught him solidly on the jaw, knocking him back.

“Vi iom putino!”  He got back on his feet and got her hair in a tight fist, holding her head still so it had to receive the full force of the backhand he threw onto her cheek, and then the matching blow on the other side.  As she tried to throw another punch he caught her wrist and forced it to the slab, pinning it into a restraint there, leaving her more helpless than before.  He turned to Spencer, grinning, clearly thrilled at the ‘victory’ he had just won, before turning back and delivering another blow, this one against her recently battered breasts, causing her to cry out in pain, and then again at the matching blow.  He grinned again at her cries, grabbed her by the nipples and twisted and pulled, causing her to howl.

By now Spencer was also howling behind his gag, and pulling frantically and the bonds that held him in the chair.  They were just loose enough to make the animal part of his brain think that he could get away, could somehow get loose and help her.  But it was no use, he was trapped there, forced to watch this horror in front of him.  There is nothing they can do to me that will be worse, he thought, than making me watch anything happen to her. 

His desire there satisfied the man stepped back and lowered the fastening on his pants.  He grabbed her by the knee, clearly intending to climb onto the slab and settle in for what he had come here for.  But that gave her his location again and she kicked up, catching him neatly in the scrotum with the full force of her leg.  “Neniu!”  He howled and doubled over, clutching himself in agony as she bared her teeth and growled at him, not yet willing to give up the fight.  “Putino!”  He screamed at her, and then he brought his fist down hard into her stomach, driving the wind out of her.  She barely had a moment to breathe before he did it a second time, and then he spat on her stomach, adding insult to injury.  He looked over at Spencer, glaring in anger at having his victim actually fight back, and then he jumped up on the slab and delivered a solid kick into the tender flesh right between her legs.  She howled again, twisting to try to protect herself but he kicked her a second time and then a third before stepping back and laughing.

Yes, Spencer thought, I actually could kill someone.  Not just in the line of duty either.  Now I know how Hotch felt toward Foyet.  I could kill with my bare hands.  I could.

 The man had dropped his pants, revealing a solid erection, and then dropped to his knees and drove himself into her in one move.  Kira arched her back and screamed at the pain of the violation.  Oh god, Spencer thought, she didn’t notice anything wrong when she checked herself.  They healed everything.  They healed  _everything_  including her hymen.  No.  He had been growling unintelligible curses this entire time but now he threw himself against the bonds that held him, screaming for her, anything to try to make this evil stop.  But he couldn’t make it stop, the man laughed and mauled her breasts and rutted away, no matter how she kicked and twisted and cried, until he gave out one last growl and emptied into her.

After a moment the man got up, leaving her lying there, sobbing.  Spencer could see the blood seeping down her thighs.  He moved to her head, and as she turned away he cleaned himself with her hair, zipped up, and spat on her once again to clarify his feeling on the matter.  Then he turned to Spencer and grinned.  “Nun ŝi scias vera viro.”  He said as he grinned.  “Vi ambaŭ atingi kion vi meritas.”  Spencer didn’t need to understand the taunts to know that they were just that.  He could feel the hatred and anger seeping out of his pores.  If we stay here long enough, he thought, if we can’t go home then I will hunt these people down and I will kill them.  I’ve learned from a hundred Unsubs, I know it can be done.  And he will be the first.

The man took his jacket and left, chuckling to himself, a certain spring in his step.  Then the lead came down and the restraints released and Spencer was pulled up by the neck and away, leaving Kira to cry all alone.


	5. Journal Entry 05

**Cage 3-3-8**   
**Storage Facility 3**   
**Capitol City**   
**Little Sister**

**Spencer**

It was hours before Kira came back.

At first Spencer did everything he could to try to get out of there.  He banged on the walls, he tried to pry at the fixtures, he even jumped up and tried rattling the ceiling.  Nothing worked, of course, the cage was solid.  But he had to try, and so he tried.

At one point he realized he was howling.

With no hope for getting out of there he found himself looking out the front of the cage, watching other cages lifted and taken back and forth.  The people inside inevitably reacted the same way ever time, they cowered toward the solid back of the cage, crying and pleading in fear as they were taken, and returned curled up at the bottom of the center well, sleeping off a sedative or too worn to react.  From what he could tell there were eight torture chambers, given that never more than sixteen people were missing at a time, and usually it was more like ten or twelve.

His inner engineer had to admire the brutal  _efficiency_  of it all.

At some point he calmed enough to hear another voice speaking out from the past.  This time it was Gideon, Jason Gideon reminding him that he didn’t need a gun; a profile was the most powerful weapon he had.  Okay then, he thought, what are my profiles?  This system as Unsub.  Kira and I as victims.  What are they going to do next, based on what they have done?  What can I prepare her for?  What will she be most upset about and what can I say that will comfort her?

Why did they have me in there?

She was there because she was still a virgin, someone wealthy and powerful would want that, would think himself well rewarded for being the first to penetrate a woman for some reason.  But why was I there?  He was taunting me, was it about the concept of theft?  Did he think he was stealing something from me or my family?  Maybe something of value?  Do they use a bride price system here?

Or was it about cuckolding me; damaging my own concept of my masculinity by taking my woman right in front of me?  That’s kind of a better fit for the way he was acting, and for the way the voting went in the test chamber.  If that’s what they want to see then they’ll continue to abuse her in front of me in order to see my reactions and they’ll force me to participate in homosexual acts to witness my supposed degradation. 

And what about her?  In a culture where women are seen as possessions, where their sexuality has some kind of implied monetary value, then she would be expected to be an innocent.  Sadists would enjoy seeing that innocence lost, would want to see her forced into ever more perverse actions until she was completely jaded.  Or if it was about damaging my masculinity then perhaps that attack was equally about damaging her femininity.  How would that take shape?  What would be humiliating to a woman from her culture?  I don’t think I have enough data to answer that.

He sat at the very front of the cage and watched and waited and fretted until at last he watched the forklift heading his way and then stopping right next to him.  He watched as her cage slid into position with her curled up, still out cold on the floor of the cage and he watched as the jolting of it locking into position jostled her awake.  From here, without his glasses, he couldn’t tell if she was still bruised, but given the amount of time she’d been gone he rather thought that she’d gone through rapid healing like he had.  At least there was that, he thought, now what will they do to her next?

The answer quickly became apparent.  She stirred, rose up on her hip and sat there a moment, blinking at him.  She looked around a moment, clearly confused by something…then she grabbed her head and screamed!

He had expected her to wake violently, but not that violently.  He nearly jumped out of his skin as she pushed herself to the back corner without the standpipe and huddled there, her knees pulled in tight and her arms around her head, keening and crying.  “Kira?”  He called to her gently.  “Shhh, it’s over.  You’re safe for the moment.  It’s over.  Shhh.”

Eventually she managed to breathe through the sobs enough to find words again.  “Don’t look at me!” 

He quickly turned away. “That’s going to be kind of hard in the long run.”  He pointed out.  “If it’s any help I still think you’re beautiful.”

“How could you now?  After what they’ve done.”

Ah.  “I know it was horrible, and I’m sure you feel horrible, but if it’s any consolation you don’t look any different,”

“Yes I do!  They…they…”

“I didn’t notice anything.  May I look?”

From the corner of his eye he could see her nodding.  “Y…yes.”

He turned to look.  She appeared to be the same, if anything the full tips of her breasts were darker, probably even more bruised.  But then she sobbed and turned her torso.

Her hair, the long, soft waves she’d worn down her back, the tidy braids around her face with their sparkling beads, all of it had been brutally chopped off.  “Oh!”  Oh hell, that would be the next attack.  “Oh, I am so sorry.  It…it doesn’t look that bad.”  That was a gentle lie.  They had butchered it until it formed spikes around her head, revealing the entire nape of her neck and a pattern of birthmarks that covered it, tapering in a Y shape to her shoulders and then down her spine.   “And it’ll grow out….”

Kira started sobbing again.  “How can you make it sound like it’s not a big deal?”

Uh oh.  “Um, I’m not from around here.  Is it a big deal?”

She nodded.  “It feels so wrong…unprotected….I’d rather walk around without pants than with my  _mock-kin_  showing.”

Huh?  “I’m sorry, your what?” 

“ _Mock-kin_.”  She traced her finger along the line of those birthmarks.  “It was bad enough when they took my  _skal-va_  away but now this!”  She started to cry again.

“Um, your what?”

“My  _skal-va_.  You know, goes around your head, and keeps your hair down over your  _mock-kin_.”

“We call that a kerchief, or a bandanna.”  Of all the bloody times to run into cross-cultural communication problems.  “And that…I’m sorry, I’ve never seen a …a  _mock-kin_  before.”

“Never?”  Well, at lease he shocked her out of her tears.

“Nope.  See.”  He turned and lifted the back of his hair, only to have her turn away with a gasp as if he had flashed her.  “Oh, sorry.  I didn’t mean...

 But after a moment she peeked and then looked in amazement.  “How in the world do you prepare for sex?”  She asked.  “Or even greet a lover?”

“Um, usually with kissing.  You know, pressing your lips together?”

“In public?”

“Mental note.  So I’m guessing that’s an erogenous zone?”

She nodded.  “Second only to…”  She looked down.  “Do women from your world have breasts?”

“Uh, yes, and they are usually sensitive and women like to keep them covered, more or less.  They’re also used for feeding babies.”  We are all mammalian, right?  More or less?

She nodded.  “So do we.  They were just so…”  She folded her arms over her breasts and started crying again.

“I’m sorry.”  He said again.  “I wish I could do something to help.  I’m sure when Emily gets here if she talked to Andrew she’ll have a  _skal-va_  for you to wear home.  I can’t do anything until then.”

“Just don’t think the less of me.  I did not do this to myself.”

“No, I know. Why would I think less of you?”

Kira turned deep pink, not only her cheeks but also her areolas.  Oh that’s blushing, he thought.  Oh.  “Here you only cut your hair to show your  _mock-kin_  if you’re… selling yourself.  Makes it easier to…show the goods.”

“That would fit a degradation profile.” 

“A what?”

“A profile.  It’s what we do…I’ll explain in a little while.  No, I don’t think less of you.  I know you didn’t ask for that and you don’t deserve to be treated like that.  You didn’t do anything wrong, they’re the ones who are the criminals here.”  A thought entered his head.  “I wonder if they’re going to cut mine.”

She shrugged.  “I don’t know.  It’s shameful for a man to show his  _mock-kin_  to someone not his partner, and humiliating for someone to take your hair and force a look.  They’ll probably do that at some point.”  She managed a very small smile.  “Would that matter to you?”

“No.  I wouldn’t even care if they cut it.”  He nodded.  “One less way they can try to break me.”  Physiology to the rescue.  But now she was crying again.  “Don’t let them break you.  Not with this.”

She shook her head.  “No.  I won’t give in.  It just hurt so much….”

She slumped against the metal as she cried, and he soothed her the only way he could.


	6. Journal Entry 06

**Cage 3-3-8**  
 **Storage Facility 3**  
 **Capitol City**  
 **Little Sister**

**Spencer**

After a while Kira stopped crying.  Spencer did not fool himself into thinking all was well, this was probably only a temporary reprieve.  But still, it was a break, which they needed.  He had no clue what he’d been saying to her, but it probably involved statistics somehow.  But after a while she did stop and she appeared to be sleeping, sitting with her knees up under her chin, her back pressed protectively against the solid back wall, all curled up in the corner closest to him.  If only I could hold her, he thought.  If only I could comfort her properly somehow.

Past that what he really wanted was a blanket.

No, make that two blankets, he thought.  He wanted one of those scratchy wool ones they kept in the trunk of nearly ever cop car he had ever seen, to be used in case someone decided to try to go into shock or something.  They were always thick and warm and smelled of petrochemicals and cleaning solvents and they meant that everything was all right now.  The crisis was over, the place was flooded with every cop within radio distance, they would take care of everything and you were no longer needed.  You could fall apart and there would even be someone spare to catch you.  Then he wanted a quilt, something powdery soft and cuddly, that smelled of sunshine and lavender.  He wanted to wrap himself in that scratchy good wool and wrap Kira in that soft quilt, and hold her close until the team got there and made everything right again.  Then he wanted to bundle her on to the plane somehow, and hold her in his lap as they took off and were finally, completely and utterly safe as could be.  Funny, he thought, even now that plane is still the safest place in the world.  In any world.

But there were no blankets.  There were no blankets because there were no people out there.  Just machines that were being very efficient; and no blankets meant no mess, no bugs, nothing to be used to jam up a gear or hang a neck from the ceiling.  Machines would think that way.  They wouldn’t understand about hard, metal floors that sucked the heat from your body or a slope to a drain that meant that there was no place flat to lie down or a light that never went off or a body that had been violated or a soul that was being torn apart by inches.  Machines didn’t care about those things.

He wanted to go home.  He wanted to take Kira home.

He heard the change in her breathing before she spoke.  “What time do you think it is out there?”  She asked.

“I don’t know.  They’ve taken away all our reference points to disorient us.  Why?”

“None of this feels real.  I don’t know, maybe if I knew what they were doing back home…”

“What do you want them to be doing back home?  What time would you like it to be?”

She didn’t have to think very long.  “Evening,” she said.  “After supper, when most of the patients go to bed, Eskel pulls out whatever he’s been brewing, and we sit around the great hall and tell stories or sing or play games, whatever.  It’s when its home.”

Spencer considered this.  How could he turn this to his advantage?  “Back home sometimes people take other people hostage, something like this.  It happened quite a lot for a while so they ended up writing up rules for all the…the Guardians, in case this happened.  I read those rules once, and I, um, never forget what I read.  It sounds like we’re both hitting the Intermediate Phase though.&rdquo

Kira looked over at him, resting her cheek upon her knee, “Anything in those rules that would help?”

“Well, the first rule was to regain and maintain composure.”

“So you can think and not panic?”

“Yep.  The next was to maintain a Iowkey, unprovocative posture so you wouldn’t call attention to yourself or challenge your captors.”

“So fighting wasn’t the best plan?”

He had to be honest, “Maybe not.  Do most women in your society know how to fight?”

“No.”

Sigh.  “We’ll work around it.  Get captors to recognize you as a human being.”  She chuckled at that one.  Right.  “Follow the rules given by the captors.”

“Kind of hard not to in here.”

“True.  Say as little as possible if questioned.  Do you know the language they’re speaking?”

“Yes, unfortunately.  We had to use it with the tax collectors and we learned it in school.  They haven't exact;y been asking questions."

“I didn't think they had.  Okay, win your captors' respect.  By that they meant be stoic, maintain your dignity.  Given that the population is watching us that might be helpful.”

“How so?”

“It might help them see us as people, and they might then not tolerate our being abused.  That might get us out of here faster.  If nothing else, at least we’ll know we gave it our best.”

She smiled, this time more honestly.  “I like that.”

He couldn’t help it, he smiled in return, “Set Goals, not that I have any in mind yet.  They say to try to survive to a certain date, but in this environment…”

“Yeah.”

“Maintain some form of control of your environment.  I know.”  That one could just be skipped.  “Keep your mind active.  See, what you said about telling stories and playing games, that’s what reminded me of the rules.  I’d love to hear your stories, if you’d like to hear mine.”

“I would.  But I’m not a storyteller.  I usually sing…”

“Do you?”  Spencer smiled.  “Sing for me?”

“Here?”  She turned pink; he could see it in her cheeks and in her… “Everyone will hear.”

“Good.  Let them know they haven’t beaten us.”

Kira just shook her head for a moment, but then she looked up and…

“ _High in the sky,_  
Through the clouds and rain,  
Every familiar field,  
Seems like an old friend,  
When every hand that you shake,  
Is like a warm embrace,  
Could only be one sweet place,  
Home and the Heartland.”

Spencer felt a shiver go down his back.  He had always wondered about the term voice of an angel.  His Mom said that applied to a pure, natural soprano, someone without any of the vocal training they heard in her operatic recordings.  Now he knew exactly what that meant.  For a moment he was home again, on a dusty carpet in Las Vegas, listening to records with his Mom, home and safe and it was so wonderful.  “Oh.  You…you have a beautiful singing voice.”  He said when she was done.

She blushed deeper.  “Thank you.  That’s one of the Missionary songs.”

“Do you know any more?”  She turned an even deeper pink.  “What?”

“Tell me the rest of the rules first.”

“Um.  Attempt to understand your captors.  That’s what I do; my job, but I don’t understand the culture at all, so…

“…so we’ll have to work together on that one.”

“Eat and exercise as much as possible, to try to stay healthy.”

Kira frowned.  “I don’t know about that one.  Something about the food makes people sick, that’s what happened to Mother.”

“We’ll do what we can.  Try to laugh as much as possible.”

She was quiet a moment.  “That might be your job too.”

“Gladly,” Spencer replied.  “The last one was never give up.  Not in any way.”

She sighed, just a little.  “I won’t if you won’t.”

“We’ll have to help each other.”

They both jumped as his cage started to snap closed once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Home in the Heartland"
> 
> Music and Lyrics by Bill Whelan  
> Performed by Anúna, Katie McMahon soloist  
> Used without permission and not for profit


	7. Journal Entry  07

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: Rape, slash, CBT. And I mean it.

**Studio 7**  
 **Program Facility 3**  
 **Capitol City**  
 **Little Sister**

**Spencer**

There was nothing done to him for the first hour that was nearly as terrifying as what happened in the first ten minutes.

After Spencer’s cage was dragged down he was once again put through the standard cleaning routine.  It was not something he’d ever be comfortable with, but at least now it was familiar, which was saying something.  At least it was until what should have been the end of it.  But right when he expected the stock wall to release him to the next horror a mask came down and sealed tight to his face.  For a moment he panicked, claustrophobia hitting him like a wave, overcoming everything.  But then he felt tighter pressure over his left eye and his eyelids were being rolled apart and held there.

Then he saw the device coming toward him.

_Hold still_

If they hadn’t just emptied his bladder he would have lost it right then, he actually felt his muscles loosen.  It’s going to blind me, he thought.  It will be too much pressure and my eyeball will pop like a balloon and no one will realize or even give a damn.  There are so many things I wanted to see and now I’ll never…

But the machine didn’t blind him, at least not permanently.  The end of it grew larger and larger until it hovered a bare centimeter away from his eyeball, and then something shot out and just barely brushed the surface, a touch he hardly felt.  But it took his vision in that eye, left behind blackness.  A cool, familiar liquid was sprayed over top and then the pressure on that eye was released.  He blinked a dozen times and felt the familiar sensation of a contact lens and saline and relaxed a trifle.

Then they did the other eye.  It was just as terrifying.

The sensation was remarkably disorienting.  His eyes were  _open_ , he could feel his eyes open, his brain was straining to see something, anything, but there was nothing but black.  At the same time the lead got around his neck again and his hands were pinned behind him and he was being dragged along once again.  Finally he just closed his eyes entirely, which at least took some of the disorientation away.

He was taken into what felt like a large room, turned, and then pulled onto his stomach onto a hard surface, over some kind of raised section that kept him on all fours, before his right arm was pinned down.  Well, he thought, my turn.  “Kira?” he asked out loud, “if you’re here and you can hear me then I want…I can guess, how a Guardian would feel right about now and I want you to remember, you tried to keep me safe.  You told me to stay under cover.  I volunteered, remember?  Given the work that I do and what it was like in school I’m actually surprised this hasn’t happened before.  Now I’m going to take this philosophically and try to keep my dignity as much as I can and you need to do the same.  Just remember what you told me, they can heal us when we get back.”

There was no answer.  No sound.

Okay, he thought, why would they make me watch?  To make me realize that I no longer had the power to protect my woman.  Why would they not make her watch?  Because they don’t expect that to be an issue for her.  That means they know little about the Missionaries, we might be able to use that to our advantage.  From what she’s said so far they’re fairly liberal in a patriarchal society.  They think I’m a member of that society.  What would you do to break a male from a patriarchal society?  Show him that he no longer has power, take his power.  Take his control.  Make him lose control.  Make him lose control of his body.  They’re going to make me respond to this, or at least try to; which would not make me feel like less of a man, I’ve never had those issues, but I really don’t want to be the star of their intranet.  Some things I’d like to keep for myself.

Which was why, when he felt the first hand run up the back of his leg and over his ass, he was already focusing on a bit of code he’d been trying to break for a while now.  It was dense stuff, there didn’t seem to be a pattern, which made it all the more engrossing.  “Saluton.”  A thick male voice said in his ear.  “Vi bela infanino. Ni ne havis iun tiel bela kiel vi en longa tempo. Ĉu farmisto estis kaŝante vin en sian grenejon?”   He felt the hair at the back of his neck parted and fingers traced over his nape, a move that should have been both humiliating and arousing.  “Belega knabo. Tro juna por via makuloj do? Sed tiam kiel veni al vi havi sako ĉi plenaj, hm?”  And the man reached down between his legs and cupped his testicles

Spencer forced himself to stay still, to endure this with as little reaction as possible.  Even when his other wrist was pinned, even as he felt warm, almost gentle hands start to play with his genitals, even as he felt something cool and then fingers penetrating, causing alarm bells to shriek in the primitive parts of his head and the desire to do  _anything_  to get away well up inside him.  Even as he naturally sprung an erection he stayed still and focused on his breathing and on the numbers he was manipulating and tried not to think about what was being done to him.

“Kio okazas al vi, bela knabo? Ĉu vi ne ŝatas ĉi tion? Ĉu vi ne ĝuas mem?”  the man said as he leaned over his prey.  Spencer felt the brush of open cloth along his bare backside, the heat of a body there, allowed himself the slightest sound at the pain of entry but otherwise refused to move, not even as an arm wrapped around his waist and began to work him too roughly for pleasure, not even as he felt the man began to kiss and even nibble on the back of his neck.  “Vi venos al mi, ĉu ne? Kiam mi donas al vi, kion vi ĉiam volis?”

After what seemed like forever Spencer felt the man thrust harder once, twice, and then the hot sensation of release.  For a moment he had to struggle not to vomit, he’d expected a condom for some reason, and the thought of something being left inside him sickened him.  The man kept masturbating him for a moment more, but it quickly became apparent that he was actually going down from the rough handling.  He felt the man leave, eventually.  Now I’ll go for healing, he thought, and rest under sedation.  I could use it, actually.  And then back to…no, he would not think of her right now.  He refused to bring any of his sexuality to this time and place.  They could violate his body but not his self; that he would not give them.

But then he heard footsteps, more than one person, and a different voice not far away.  “Pensu vi estas tro bona por ni, ĉu? Tro fiera veni por la popolo?”  The voice snarled with anger.  “Ni montros al vi.”    He cried out as he suddenly felt something hard being shoved inside and ground painfully into his prostate, and then rough hands around his genitals as the hard thing started to vibrate.

At that point it became purely mechanical.  There are some things the human body simply cannot fight, try as it may.  Within moments Spencer could feel the unwanted orgasm building, and he knew he was helpless to stop it.  I tried, he told himself; I tried.  Maybe whoever won the auction wants their money back at least.  It was the best I could do.  I can’t…I can’t…I’m gonna… but then the vibe was pulled out and the hand let go.  With the loss of stimulation the promised orgasm died, but his ejaculatory reflex was past the point of no return.  He felt himself dribble out, hot and unsatisfying, leaving an almost sickly feeling

Then the vibe was shoved back in there and someone grabbed the head of  his penis and ripped the skin off.

At least that’s what it felt like.  He was extremely sensitive after, like most men, and he had learned through personal experimentation that even very gentle handling after was torturously painful.  Their hands were rough and abrasive and they weren’t using lube and they were being deliberately cruel besides.  Three more times they brought him to the edge and then stopped as he fell over, dribbling out less and less fluid every time as the aching sensation of being too stuffed and too full down there continued as there were no muscle spasms to send the blood back into his body.  By then his attempts at being stoic were over, he was begging them to stop, crying from the pain, retching from the sensations even though his stomach was empty and he was only bringing up water and bile.

Finally the fifth time they let him reach orgasm but it was too late, his system was pumped dry.  He screamed as it hit, it felt like glass was being run through his testicles as they pumped a vacuum, the pain utterly overwhelming, making him dizzy with the unexpected severity.  “No more!  Please no more.  Please!”

They laughed.

The rough hands grabbed him again, making him cry out.  He felt them squeeze and push back; forcing the blood out of his penis, once again making him swear that the skin was being peeled off.  Then he felt a new, sharper pain as something cold and rigid was shoved down his swollen and inflamed urethra, almost to the root.   Something cold and hard was being wrapped around him and inside him, even as he begged them to leave him alone.  When they finally let go they left a heavy weight wrapped around him down there, dragging everything down, pulling and making every pain all the more intense.

As the coup de grace he felt something thick and heavy splatter over the back of his neck, running down over his shoulders and into his hair.  It happened again as the second tormentor let go, and then the third hit him in the face, mixing with his sweat and tears.  He spat and blew, trying to get it off his lips, the last thing he wanted to taste, and tried to shake it off.  Hopefully they’ll take me to healing, he thought.  Hopefully they’ll clean me up there.  Hopefully I really can be healed.

But it was not to happen.  He was dragged up, the weight a swinging misery between his legs, and tugged down the hallway.  It almost pushed him when it let his hands and neck go, and he stumbled and fell, right into one of the cages, which closed up behind him.


	8. Journal Entry 08

## 

**Cage 3-3-8  
Storage Facility 3  
Capitol City  
Little Sister**

**Spencer**

Spencer laid flat on the floor of the cage, not moving, not even wanting to breathe until it had been lifted into place.  Of course at that moment he heard the voice he least and most wanted to hear.  “Spencer?”  Kira called, quietly enough to not wake him if he was, by chance, asleep.

“Please don’t look.”

“I’m not.”

He made himself move then, slowly crawling along the floor, hissing in pain as whatever was attached to his genitals hit the seam in the metal and the vibrations rattled up into his body.  He felt his way to the standpipe in the corner, far too low to wash his body, but he cupped his hands and washed his face as clean as he could, and then scrubbed his hands before gently taking out the opaque contacts.  The sudden light drove a sharp pain into his head, but after a moment it passed.

“Spencer?"

“Not yet.”    Why wouldn’t they have healed him?  Probably because that for all that he hurt, he ached in every muscle and bone, he hadn’t been injured.  Overstimulation doesn’t involve torn or crushed tissues, and the original penetration had actually been fairly gentle for that sort of thing.  And then there was this thing, now that he could see Spencer looked down his body at what had been left attached.  It was made of heavy steel, hinged to open, thankfully, a clamshell design that completely encased his testicles and a round pipe with a vented end that completely covered his penis, both attached to a steel ring that had been locked around the base of both.  A slight jiggle confirmed what he’d felt, there was a catheter, probably steel from the level of discomfort involved, that ran up his urethra almost to his bladder.  It hurt when he bounced the thing.  It hurt more when he stood up and felt the solid three pounds of the thing swing down, pulling on everything in there.  He had to literally bend and hold it up, a charming way to have to walk, and what was it going to be like when you had to walk with your hands behind your back?  He decided not to think about that right now.  At least I’m covered, he thought.

He carried himself over to the back corner opposite the stand pipe, the one closest to Kira’s cage, and curled up in the corner next to her.  “It’s all right.”  He said, freeing her to lift her head and look.

She was still curled back there, where she could have something solid against her delicate back.  “Oh!”  She said, catching sight of all that metal.  “Oh, that’s….”

“Uncomfortable.  Did anything happen while I was gone?”

“No, not at all.”

“Good.  I’m going to try to get some rest, okay?”  He had to at least rest, he was so very weary in heart and bone.

“All right.”  He saw her smile then.  “I know a lullaby if it would help.”

“It might.”  He sank down, curled to bury his face in his arms to keep out the light, and she tucked him under the blanket of her song.

\------

_Play with me, she said._

_It was nearly summer in LA, warm and soft with the scent coming off the Pacific.  The perfect temperature for being in a swimming pool at night with a round, soft girl in his arms._

_Play with me, she said, as she smiled up at him with those crystal blue eyes._

_There was an Unsub out there somewhere, the danger was real.  But vastly less dangerous than where he had recently been.  The phone on the deck had all the bars of signal you could want and his gun was there, dry and ready to defend them, or sound for help from the cops out front.   And it was just the two of them in this pool._

_Play with me, she begged as she swung soft, brown curls and tiny braids tipped with sparking beads out of her face._

_His body ached with everything that had been done, with everything hard and painful, and in the end unsatisfying.  He ached with wanting to feel good, just for a moment.  Just…please._

_She swam up into his arms and pressed rich, soft curves against his body.  Play with me, she whispered, please._

_He wrapped his arms around her as his lips found hers and…._

_\------_

Spencer woke with a harsh cry as something gnawed off his penis.

When the pain did not abate after a moment he looked down to see that it was still attached.  But with the natural reaction to his dream the steel catheter was digging in on the inside, preventing the natural rise and the swelling was causing him to press against the inside of that pipe.  A pipe which, he now realized, was lined with spikes.  And with the steel right snug against his body his stiffening wasn’t going to go away anytime soon.  All he could do was lie there, holding it against his body to keep it from getting any worse, and try to breathe through the horrific pain.

“Spencer?”  Kira raised her head from where she was curled in her own fitful sleep.  “Spencer!”

He raised his hand to at least show her that he wasn’t dying, then went back to breathing.  In and out.  In and out.  Why, he thought.  Why?  Why?  Why?

But for now it eluded him.  There was too much pain.


	9. Journal Entry 09

**Cage 3-3-8**  
Storage Facility 3  
Capitol City  
Little Sister

**Spencer**

"So what do you think they’re going to do?”  Spencer asked.  “What’s their most logical course of action?”

They had just finished their first meal in the cages.  Spencer had just finished explaining the concept of a Skinner box, of conditioning.  In return Kira had explained Sisterian biology and sexuality.  “They’re going to turn me into every man’s fantasy.”  She said bitterly.  “Just like they do to all the women who come through here.  And now we know why.”

“So they can watch.”  Spencer nodded.  Every man’s fantasy was pretty standard for pornography; it was usually geared to the male gaze, customarily disregarded women’s sexuality entirely.  It appeared that this was the same on both planets.  “How would they go about doing that?”  He watched her blush again.  “I know it’s hard, but its better that we know so we can prepare.”

It still took her a moment to get started.  “You know how, with me, there comes a point where they just can’t stop?  Even if the roof came in their bodies will still finish?”

“The ejaculatory response.”  Yes, he was quite intimately familiar with that at this point.

She nodded.  “Women have something similar.  They get to the point where they just…they want to make love to someone so badly that it will hurt if they don’t.  They…they get to the point where they beg.  And, you know, if they have a partner, if they’re married or just like that, then it’s not a problem, you just do and it’s wonderful.  But…they push…female captives to that point as quickly as possible.”

“How?”

“Men.”  She closed her eyes and shuddered a little.  “Many men, as many as they can.  It’s the stimulation and the exposure to…to their…”

“Seed?”  She nodded.  “I see why you dropped out of Healer school.”  He said, just to get her to relax.

It seemed to help a little.  “Yes.  And then when they’re at the point where they’re begging they…they take away their ability to find that like a woman ought.”  She was shaking as she finished, and now she was curling up into an even tighter ball at the thought.

Take away…. All of a sudden he swore his heart stopped.  “Some kind of genital mutilation?”

She nodded.  “Then you have no choice but to do it their way, whatever they want, no matter how…painful or perverse.  Anything to relieve the ache.  They end up begging for the most disgusting things… one time I saw this girl, she had just been released, her family knew to bring her to us right off.  She was kneeling in front of Grant, one of the male Healers, and just begging him to beat her.  She wanted him to hit her because she couldn’t relieve the pressure any other way.  It was so…so…”  Kira took a deep breath.  “That’s why I dropped out of Healer school, I was too angry about what had happened to be patient enough to heal.  I still don’t know how Andrew does it.”

“I’d be angry too.  Am angry too.”  Gang rape, genital mutilation, and then conditioning to accept paraphililas as a substitute to relieve the biological symptoms, Spencer just sighed.  “And they can treat this at the Abbey, even the mutilation?”

Kira nodded vigorously.  “Yes.  They take care of you until your body calms all the way down, then they treat your wounds and you talk about what happened.  Then they help your body come alive again, only this time in the way you and your partner can enjoy forever.  I know they can help us.  Well,” It was her turn to sigh.  “…help you.”

Wait a minute.  “Why can’t they help you?”

“I don’t have a partner.”

“Do you need one?”

“At the end.”

“Why?”

She looked at him, curiously.  “To teach you how to love without being afraid.”

It took him a minute but it finally kicked in.  “You mean how to  _make_  love without being afraid.  As in hands on experience.”

“Of course, how else would you learn?”  She sighed.  “You don’t have to worry, there are a lot of female Healers, I’m sure one of them will be willing to work with you.”

Spencer set that aside for a moment.  “But none of the men would be willing to work with you?”

“Right now we only have one man there trained to work with women.  Andrew.”

“You’re brother."

“Yeah.  There are other men there, but they help male captives.  They might be willing to help, as a favor to my brother, at least to try, but…”

“But that’s not exactly ideal.”  And kind of humiliating on top of it all.  “I’m assuming its taboo to do that sort of thing with your brother then?”  She nodded.  “That’s all right, where we’re from its taboo to do that with your doctor, so I’m actually in the same fix.”

“Really?”  He nodded.  “Oh.  I’m sorry.  I don’t…”

“It’s all right.”

They were quiet for a long moment, each locked into the idea of knowing it was going to be bad and knowing that they would never quite heal.  But eventually Kira sighed.  “It’s funny.  Now I wish we both had partners.”

“Now?”  Spencer looked over.

She blushed again.  “When we first met by the river and you said your team was missing I almost volunteered to be your Guardian until we found them.”  She shrugged, this time it was shy.  “You looked…interesting.”

And he’d been attracted to her when they first met as well.  But hey, “Looked?”

“Okay, look.  You are interesting.  And brave to go with a girl you just met so she wouldn’t have to be alone, and strong to get through this as you have.  But now I wish you’d had someone.”

“Why?”

“They say it’s easiest to heal when you have a partner.  There is a saying that lovers tangle the strings between the heart and the mind.  They even do that when you marry, tie the two partners together.  At the Abbey they say that the only way to survive this is to let your soul part from your body, so that it rattles around loose inside your skin, and that if you have a partner they can use the string they hold to sew your body and soul back together again.”

In later years Spencer would never know, in the moment before he spoke, if he wanted to comfort her, comfort himself, or if it was simply the way fate had intended it to be all along.  “I’ll hold your string if you’ll hold mine.”

Kira looked up at him.  “What?”

“I thought you looked beautiful, I admit it, and you still do.  And you have to be a lot braver, given that you knew what would happen but you saved your brother anyway.  And any girl who would teach herself to read and then start working her way through the library just for the pleasure of learning is a girl I’d find…interesting too.  So yes, be my partner, and I’ll be yours and we’ll get through this and  _heal_  from this together.”

She looked at him a long moment, then pushed her fingers through the wire, meeting his halfway.   “Yes.”  At that moment Spencer swore he could feel strings tangling her to him and back again, strong enough to never break.

Just then her cage started closing up, making them both jump.  Kira turned and looked at him with terror in her eyes.  “Don’t let go!”  She pleaded with him.

“Never!  I’ll never let go!”  He promised as they took her away again.


	10. Journal Entry 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: Rape

**Studio 12**  
Program Facility 3  
Capitol City  
Little Sister

**Spencer**

Right after Kira was taken the lift came back for him.  Once again he was taken for the cleansing routine, which proceeded as expected.  Thankfully the device locked around his genitals was removed, causing a momentary pain, but exquisite relief at not having that heavy weight swinging down there while he was sprayed clean.  Just having to get into this position had been torture enough.  Then at the end another device, some kind of nozzle, was presented to his lips.

_Open mouth_

There was no point in fighting the machines so he opened his mouth and felt it snake down his throat.  When he was just starting to gag it stopped and sprayed something acrid and sharp.  He immediately started coughing but it was no use, even as the thing withdrew his mouth and throat were going numb.  “One, two, three four,” he said, quietly, “One, two, three, four.  One, two…”  Yep, his voice was going.  Great.

Once again he was lifted up and dragged off, only this time it was to an elevator.  He stood there, swaying slightly, held in place by the tether around his neck, as they dropped a good four floors.  Once there the machine dragged him out and down dingier halls with a distinctly bad smell.  He was pulled into a large room, this one considerably shabbier than the last he had seen.  Not only was there no furniture but the walls were smudged and marked and the concrete floor was stained

The area where he was taken was one corner, separated from the rest with actual steel bars.  Once in there his neck was released and he felt the distinct click of his wrists coming free.  He tried the door first, but it was smooth in its frame, no handle or lock or even more than a hairline to show where the door actually was.  Then the bars but they were solidly set into the concrete, floor and ceiling.  He wasn’t getting out of this corner, period.

A door at the far side opened and Kira was pulled through.

She was on her toes as she stumbled in to the room, and fell when the lead let go, only to catch herself on her hands and knees as her wrists were let go at the same time.  When she looked up he could see that her eyes were black.  “S…Spencer?”  She called.

“Kira!”  But it came out as a hoarse whisper that barely reached his ears let alone hers.

“Spencer?”  She slowly rose; her hands extended out in front of her, trying to feel for any obstruction.

“Kira…”  There had to be some way, some way to make some kind of a…wait   He tapped his wrist cuff off the bars that held him.  It made a distinct clink sound.  _clink clink clink_

“Spencer?”

_clink clink clink_

“Is that you?”

_clink clink clink_

“If it’s you knock twice.”

_clink …clink_

“Oh!  Where are you?”

He started double tapping, slower as she moved away, faster as she moved toward him.  Soon enough she was walking toward his corner, closer and closer still until her hands came up against the bars.  They weren’t set far enough apart to get an arm through but most of a hand could fit.  “Spencer?”  He caught her fingers, pulled them close, and pressed his lips to the backs.  She was there, right there!  “Is it really you?”  He leaned in to the bars and pressed her fingers to his cheek, and then he turned slowly so she could trace around to the back of his neck and feel the lack of anything there.  “Oh!  It’s you!  Did…did they take your voice?”  He nodded under her fingers.  “I’m glad you’re here.”  He reached his own fingers through and gently ran the tips of his fingers over her cheek.  He could be strong for her, he had to be.

It was the movement that caught his eye.  Men were filing in to the room behind her.  They were considerably shorter than either of them, by a good foot in his case, and they looked filthy, he could smell them from here.  They were also looking at her, eyeing her up and down, looks that made it quite clear why they were there.  She must have felt the way his body changed when he saw them.  “What is it?”  She asked, quietly

He couldn’t answer; instead he wrapped her fingers around the bar and held them there as the men kept filing in; ten, twelve, fifteen before they stopped.  No, that was too much, that was too many, that many would hurt her, surely.  “I won’t let go.”  He breathed as she wrapped her other hand around the bar and he held that one there as well.  “I won’t let go.”  He breathed as the men came closer and closer, and finally gathered around her.  Close enough to smell unwashed bodies and feted breath, close enough to feel the heat they gave off, close enough for him to glare, but they only gave him mocking smiles.

One of them laughed, low.

She whimpered quietly and closed her eyes tight.

One of them ran a hand down the sensitive spots on her back.

She shook.

For a moment time stopped.

Then they were on her.  They pried at his fingers, trying to get him off, wrapped arms around her body to pull her off and drag away.  Spencer tried so hard but there were just too many of them.  They laughed as she kicked and fought and screamed.  “NOO!!!!”

“Kira!”  Spencer howled as they pulled her down under them.  “Kira!”  He started pounding on the bars, quickly smearing them with his own blood.  “Kira!  Kira!  Kira!”

* * *

 

**Cage 3-3-8**  
Storage Facility 3  
Capitol City  
Little Sister

Spencer awoke from sedation as his cage was being lifted back into place.

As he rolled he became distinctly aware of the fact that the device was once again wrapped around and in his genitals.  He was also aware of the fact that the bruises and splits on the backs of his knuckles were healed.  And…”One, two, three.”  His voice was back as well.

Unfortunately nothing could ever repair his memory.

He supposed all gang rapes were brutal things.  They had taken her one after the other, while the other men stood around and yelled and whistled and cheered the active ones on.  She’d screamed and cried at first, curses and threats as she tried to fight but there were Just.  Too.  Many.  Toward the end she was sobbing, pleading with them to stop, please, no more, it hurts.  It hurts.

He couldn’t do anything.  He couldn’t do a god damned thing.

When the lead connected to his neck and dragged him out they were still going at her.

He waited for what seemed liked forever until her cage returned.  She was curled up in the bottom, seemingly unharmed.  Even if he squinted he couldn’t see a mark on her.  But when she came to and immediately started shaking he knew that the true damage was to her endocrine system.  They had just forced what should have taken months onto her in hours; her reaction had to be harsh.  “Spencer?”  She whispered as she crawled over to their corner

“I’m right here.”  He said as quietly and gently as he could.

She curled up as close as she could get, and wrapped her arms around her belly.  “It hurts.”  She admitted.

“I know.  I’m so sorry.  I wish I…”

She shook her head, reached her fingers for his.  “You didn’t let go.  All that time I could feel you, you didn’t let go.”

“I won’t.”  He promised again, touching his fingers to her.  “Rest,” he said to her.  It was the only thing he could suggest.

“I don’t…I can’t stop shaking.”

“Try.  Lay down.”  She curled up in the corner.  “I would sing if I could but…I know poetry.”  She nodded.

He cleared his throat.  Maybe it wasn’t the best choice, but for all his memory right now it was the only thing that came to mind.

_It was many and many a year ago,_

_nbsp; In a kingdom by the sea,_

_That a maiden there lived whom you may know_

_nbsp; By the name of Annabel Lee;_

_And this maiden she lived with no other thought_

_nbsp; Than to love and be loved by me._

He tucked her beneath the blanket of his words until she slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you actually want to hear Matthew Gray Gubler recite "Annabel Lee" click on this link
> 
> http://www.matthewgraygubler.com/radio/
> 
> Then click on"KGUBE Radio"  
> Then click on "Stories"  
> Then click on "Annabel Lee"


	11. Journal Entry 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: Indications of CBT

**Studio 5a**  
Program Facility 3  
Capitol City  
Little Sister

**Spencer**

Spencer completely lost track of the days.

He had no clue about the spacing between events any more, but they seemed to happen in a more or less predictable pattern.  They were fed somewhat regularly at first, but then once they were quite used to what was served the nature of the meals changed.  After getting a mouthful of rotting filth when biting into one package and a mouthful of wriggling maggots after biting into the next he was careful with the third, and let it sit for a moment while he observed.  After a few moments a large cockroach had broken through the breaded coating but was trapped in the plastic.  As more of its friend followed he and Kira decided to just give up on eating altogether.  The rich and savory smells still made them ache with hunger but he recited poetry until the pains passed.  Besides, after every torture session they went to medical and when they came back he noticed small bruises like you might get from an IV, and she noticed the same, so they weren’t starving, the pain was just their digestive system shutting down.  That was reparable. 

With some regularity Kira was dragged off to be gang raped, and every time he was forced to stand there and watch.  While he couldn’t say he ever got over the horror there was the very slight benefit of being able to actually get close for a few moments before the next group of men came in.  It was a very slight benefit but one they came to cherish, the only physical comfort they had in this hell.  The major drawback was that Kira’s hormones were shifting, a shift that grew with every assault.  She was literally ill now, curled up in the corner most of the time, shivering as if she had a fever and trying not to moan at what she described as a constant ache.  Even without his glasses he could see that certain parts of her body were becoming swollen and engorged constantly.  “You said they could fix this.”  He reminded her gently at one point, “When we get back to the Abbey.”

“They can, I know it.  It will be better someday.”  He sighed.  Someday.  It was so easy to lose hope in a situation like this.  “I just don’t want to beg, not in front of all those people.  It should be something private.  It should be….”

“Intimate.”

“Yes.”

“It will be, when we’re home.  I promise.”  If he had to turn Unsub and kill people to get that for her he would.  “Maybe Emily will get here before it gets that far.”  Emily.  They were pinning all their hopes on Emily, that she could get the Abbey to send out a rescue party, that she could find them, that she could find a way in and out.  Spencer knew in his bones that she would try and not stop, but the how was still confounding him.  “Just try not to think about it.  Focus on something else, kind of ignore your body for now.”

He heard a chuckle.  “Become half-dead you mean.”

Of course.  Detachment, dissociation, even to the point of depersonalization, common symptoms of extreme, long-term trauma.  ‘Half-dead’ was an excellent way to describe those states.  “Yes, I think that’s exactly what I mean.”

She was quiet a long moment.  “If I do you won’t let go?”

And an emotional connection to give the motivation for treatment.  “No, I won’t let go.”

“Good.”  She sighed and curled deeper.  “Do you have any more stories?”

He’d been telling her about Earth, about the BAU, telling stories he remembered.  Bless his memory; he remembered them all, “Always.”

As it turned out she wasn’t the only one at risk for depersonalization.  It finally hit when it was his turn again.  He had been regularly dragged off, sometimes blinded, and taken to a room where he had been raped, someone different each time but each time they clearly expected him to enjoy the experience.  He never did, even though at this point he would have just to make the cycle end.  But he simply could not react to men, he wasn’t wired that way.  And when he wouldn’t they would mechanically force the issue, causing more and more pain every time. 

At last one time it got to be too much.  He was stretched on something akin to a rack, his arms and legs out as far as they would go.  They had dragged another naked captive in, this one shaking in fear and cowering, clearly willing to do anything to save his own skin.  The torturers forced the other man to his knees before picking up a foot long needle and coming over to Spencer.  “Aŭskultu knabo, vi tuj venu malsupren lia gorĝo ĉi tempo aŭ alie mi tuj brocheta tiuj ovoj de via. Komprenas?”

Spencer didn’t have to know what was said, he could imagine exactly where those needles were going to go.  He’d been here too long and seen too many case files not to know.  Even as the other captive crawled over and took Spencer’s penis into his mouth Spencer felt this sort of internal click.  Almost instantly his fear evaporated, as everything around him grew hazy and dim.  He felt himself falling away inside his skin, detaching and disconnecting, suddenly unable to feel what was being done to him.  From that moment on no matter what they did to him, how they tried to manipulate him, he simply could not get hard.  He could no longer handle the fear of the pain involved so his reproductive system simply shut down.

Later, after he had been healed, he curled up in their corner and murmured so Kira could hear.  “I think they finally did it.”  He admitted to her.  “I think they finally broke me.  I can’t function anymore.”  The eunuch, the ultimate unthreatening male.  Now they could use him as they wanted and always feel superior.  And if it wasn’t for Kira the depression would have swallowed him whole, he wouldn’t bother to fight at all.

But there was Kira, and he loved her and he had to fight for her.  “They can help you.”  She promised him.  “At the Abbey, they can show you how to find that again.”

Spencer considered facing that pain again.  “I don’t think I can.”  He admitted.  “I think I might be too afraid.”

“Even if we face it together?”

And there it was.  There was the thread he could draw on when the time came.  He could hold her hand and… “I think together we can face anything.”

“I think so too.”

 


	12. Journal Entry 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: Torture

**Studio 1a**   
**Program Facility 3**   
**Capitol City**   
**Little Sister**

**Spencer**

Spencer fretted as he was dragged out of the cleaning room.  Just before his cage had been pulled out Kira had been taken, which usually meant that whatever happened it was going to involve both of them.  He was concerned because she was so very ill now

She hadn’t been able to sleep for three rest periods, she just turned and twisted, unable to get comfortable at all.  Even without his glasses he could see that the intimate parts of her body were swollen and reddened, an adaptation that usually signaled readiness.  And her stress level had gone up considerably; she kept breaking out into soft sobs, whimpering with distress.  “What’s wrong?”  He gently asked her at one point.

“I’m afraid.”  She admitted to him.  “I don’t want to do this.  Not like this.”

“I’m sorry.”  He said.  “We’ll find a way to make this up to you, I promise.  You just have to survive.”

Now something was happening, he just didn't know what.

As soon as he was dragged into the room he felt the magnetic lock on his wrists let go, and the tether around his neck lose tension.  The room itself was large and empty, somewhat cleaner than the gang rape room but not as clean as the room where they were presented for the winners of their virginities.  In the center of the room, in one direction, and about a third of the way from the door he was brought through was a large, wide, t-shaped stand of some kind.  After checking the door Spencer went to examine it and found that the rope around his neck allowed him just enough slack to reach this side of it.  He could press his body up against it but no matter what he did he could not get around to the other side.

A door in the far side opened and Kira was dragged through.

She was dragged up to the stand, pressed right up against it, and then her arms were stretched out to either end of the top bar of the T.  As soon as they were fastened into place she started crying, pulling frantically on the bars and keening out her terror.  “Kira.”  He said, quickly moving as close as he could, “Shhh, it’s all right, I’m right here.”

“Spencer.”  She cried, softly, her voice shaking in fear.  “It’s not…I don’t…I…”

“Shhhh.”  He couldn't quite reach to get his arms around her, the base was too wide, but he could press up against it and easily stroke her face, put his arms around her shoulders.  “Whatever it is we’ll get through it together.”

At this angle her face was almost buried in his shoulder.  She sobbed for a moment, shaking in her fear.  “I’m so scared.”

“I know.  I know.  Remember, they can fix it.  You told me that.”  She sobbed and nodded.  “All we have to do is survive.”

“I don’t want this.”

“I know.”

“Please.”

By now even Spencer was becoming increasingly concerned.  What was going to happen that had her so terrified?  What could be causing this?

A moment later he found out.  A man entered the room and bowed to the cameras slightly.  Then he opened the cloth bundle he was carrying and revealed an object Spencer had only seen in history books.

It was a cat.

A cat was made up of lengths of rope, braided into a handle, and then unraveled into a rough, main tailed whip.  It was designed to scour the skin of a man’s back as a form of corporal punishment.  But Kira didn't have a man’s back, she was a Sisterian woman and her back was covered in spots that acted as an erogenous zone.  While Kira sobbed into his shoulder Spencer gently ran his fingers over one on the back of her neck.  It was akin to the skin on his lips, more a membrane than true skin, and was warm and swollen with blood.  That cat, he realized, would scratch and scrape her skin, but it would literally tear her spots right off her body.  And it would do so slowly and painfully, so she would know that she was losing the ability to ever experience ‘normal’ pleasure again, even as she suffered with need.

He thought they meant genital mutilation.  No, they meant  _this_.

He threw himself against the tether that held him to this side of the whipping post, but it was no use, he would hang himself before he got to the other side to come between her and the whip.  And there was no way he could get his arms around both it and her to protect her.  But he was taller than the average male around here, and if he pulled against the tether and stretched as far as he could he could just get his right hand around her neck and his left between her shoulder blades.  It wasn't much, but even something, he thought, something to start from.  Something to keep it from being completely hopeless.

The man had been watching this performance, smirking and even chuckling as Spencer tried so hard to protect his love.  Now he cocked his head and looked at this arrangement, clearly he had not expected Spencer to be able to do anything at all.  “Movu viajn manojn.”  He said.

Spencer just glared at him.  The meaning behind the words was clear.  But so was what he was doing.  “Don’t let go.”  Kira pleaded into his ear.

“Movu viajn manojn!&rdquo

“Never.”  He vowed to her in reply.

The man looked at him, shook his head, and cracked the whip across Kira’s backside.  It left a wide streak of welts that quickly started oozing blood.  She cried out from the sudden pain.  “Movu viajn manojn!&rdquo

Spencer just set his jaw and did not reply.

The man shrugged.  The he cracked the whip just above the tattoo on Kira’s back, catching the bottom of her tail of spots and tearing them open.  She gasped, the sudden pain too much for her to even scream

The next blow caught her higher, tore even more and then she did scream.  That pure soprano rang in Spencer ears as she let out a piercing cry of pure misery and tried to recoil from the whip.  But there was nowhere for her to go, no way to escape.  All Spencer could do was stretch a little further, try to cover a millimeter more.

Slowly, carefully, blow by blow, scream by scream the man worked his way up her back, slowly destroying the membranes until her back was a waterfall of blood.  Finally he reached her shoulder blades and tried one more time.  “Movu viajn manojn.&rdquo

Spencer grit his teeth and shook his head.  He knew was coming, he knew what was about to happen, but he would not let go.

“Kiel vi deziras.”  The man raised his ship and cracked it across Kira’s shoulders and over Spencer’s hand.

Spencer gasped as all of his fingers were crushed, the bones breaking, the skin ripped off.  It was far more painful than being beaten on the feet, easily as bad as being shot.  But he could take it; he would take it to give Kira any kind of hope.   
  
Then he was hit again.  And again.  Blow after blow rained down and now he was crying out with her screams as his blood ran and mingled with hers and pooled on the floor.

But he never let go.

The man reached the top of her shoulders and could go no further.  He lowered the whip and just stared at Spencer, who slowly opened his eyes and stared back, almost daring him to keep going.  But the man didn’t.  Instead he did something entirely unexpected.

He gave Spencer the smallest nod of respect, and then walked away.

Kira was sobbing into his shoulder, her voice hoarse and broken from her screams, weak from pain and the loss of blood.  “Shhh.”  Spencer managed to choke out through his own agony.  “It’s over.  It’s over.”

A moment later the tether came down and connected to her collar and dragged her up and off the whipping post.  It turned her around to show him the damage, to rub it in, but what Spencer saw had just the opposite effect.  For there, on the back of her neck and just dipping between her shoulders, was one swath that was undamaged.  One place from which they could begin again.

After they dragged her away, hopefully to some kind of healing, as he started shaking from shock, Spencer looked down at his left hand.  He could see the muscles there, the tendons beneath the ruined skin.  He could even see bits of bone.  It was a mangled mess, and his only hope was that their accelerated healing would somehow put it all back together

They dragged him off to medical and as he lay down and the hood slid into place for sedation he realized it was worth it.  Even if I lose that hand, he thought, it was worth it.  We have hope, he thought.  I protected her at last.


	13. Journal Entry 13

**Medical Room 6**   
**Program Facility 3**   
**Capitol City**   
**Little Sister**

**Spencer**

In situations like this new things were never good.  Waking up in medical was a new thing. 

Spencer blinked at the tools and arms above him for a few moments.  This was different and in a situation like this different was usually bad.  But at the moment he was completely untethered and the heavy training device wasn’t strapped around his genitals so he slowly sat up to see if there was any way out of here.  As soon as he did, though, he must have tripped some kind of sensor.

_Please dress_

He looked around and noticed a pile of clothing on the end of the gurney.  No one was going to have to ask him twice, he eagerly reached for the pants.  As he did he realized that his left hand was numb.  A close examination show him that the skin was healed, completely healed, not even a scar, and that he could bend all of his fingers and manipulate things.  But it felt numb, like he’d been injected with a healthy amount of anesthetic and it had yet to wear off.  Still, he was not going to complain.

Once he was in the pants and long sleeve shirt a door opened behind him.  Not the usual door, this one looked more like the door to a loading elevator, and the small, yellow room beyond looked like an elevator car.

_Please enter_

Well what the hell.  Spencer stepped inside.  The door closed behind him and a moment later they were moving.  Only not up or down, they were moving sideways.

Right

After only a moment of this the room stopped moving.  It settled and then with a series of clanks the door opened again.  A heartbeat later and Kira was in his arms.  “Spencer!”  She gasped.  “What’s going on?”

Oh!  He cradled her to him, as gently as he could, mindful of her injuries even though she was wearing matching clothes and no blood was showing.  “I don’t know.  Are you all right?”

She nodded against his shoulder.  “I think so.  I can’t feel anything.”  She looked up at him, right there, she was right there!  “You didn’t let go.”

“No.  I won’t.”  He brushed a too short lock of hair away from her eyes, and before he realized it he was kissing her, laying his hands around her neck, covering her again, keeping her as safe as he could.  She tasted of herbs and honey and everything wild and a place entirely new and he could feel her trembling in his arms.  “Don’t let go.”  He pleaded. 

“I won’t.”  She promised as she kissed him back,  “Never.”  They kissed and kissed again and then she stopped, pressing against him, and he could just see her eyes contract.  “Please.”  She murmured against his lips.  “Please.”

But there was no time to realize what was happening to her.  The elevator had been dropping this entire time, now it stopped and started clanking like the door would open.  They turned to face it, Spencer keeping one hand on her back to protect her even as she started to step in front of him.  And then the door opened and Spencer saw the one thing in the galaxy he most wanted to see.

“Emily.”


	14. Cut scene - Chapter 75

Kira tugged him into the privacy of her bedroom and into her arms.  “Please.”  She whispered against his lips.  “Please.”

It was kissing then, over and again, catching the taste of her, the sudden scent of her arousal, heady and rich on the air.  She started unbuttoning his shirt and as the cool air touched his skin he realized that he was so hard it ached and he wasn’t at all afraid.  “Yes.”  He said to her then.  He reached up and lightly traced the membrane under her scarf.  “Yes.”

 

 

 

She gave him this up from under look then, stepped back as she tugged the scarf from her neck, turned and pulled her shirt over her head.  Most female mammals gave some sign that they were ready, a scent, a cry, a change in their bodies.  Spencer had always wondered why human females didn’t.  Now he realized that Sisterian women did.  Every spot on Kira’s back was swollen, had turned a rich red.  It was a potent visual signal, exotic and beautiful, that just screamed desire and need.  He stepped closer, fascinated, and lightly ran his hand over, feeling the softness, the heat, her pulse through the membranes.  She cried out in response, clinging to the bed post as she arched into his touch.

She turned into his arms and found his lips again.  Her breasts were impossibly soft where they pressed against his chest, her nipples little hard stubs in the center.  While their tongues met and clashed he gently cupped one, brushing it with his palm even as his other hand ran over her back.  She clung to his shoulders and groaned into his mouth as she pressed into his hardness in reply.  “Please.”  She said.  “Oh please.”

“Yes.”  He kissed her over to the bed where they fell, a tangle of limbs made worse as they tried to get their pants off.  After a moment he had to laugh and stop her, holding her hands away until her glazed eyes focused on him.  Only then did he slowly start to peel off her riding pants, pulling them off with her boots and tossing them to one side before sliding his hand up her sleekly muscled legs.  The cloth she wound around and through her legs seemed to come open at a touch, leaving her bare to his gaze in the faint light of the fire.  “So beautiful,” he said as he moved back up to take her mouth again.

While they tasted each other and his hands wandered over her curves and those endlessly fascinating membranes he dimly felt her hands on his belt, on his buttons.  He felt relief when he was liberated from his pants, the pressure was getting painful, but then she was touching him with delicate, questing fingers.  For a moment a part of him remembered how that felt and considered panicking but she rolled into him, all that softness and all he could do was groan and let her explore her fill.

Before it became too much, and that was very close he nudged her onto her back and took his turn to explore.  He had seen their anatomical books (and memorized the ones for humans, of course), and he knew that she had what human medicine would call a didelphys uterus, with two spaces to carry children and two cervixes connected to one vagina, and that when the time came she would ovulate on both sides at once and so most likely have twins.  And he knew that she had some odd ring of tissue wrapped round her vagina a little ways under those cervixes.  But their anatomy books had not contained an illustration from any angle that would help him here.  So he was exploring without a map when he reached down and gently slid one hand up her thigh to see if she would relax and let him in.

She did, even as she kissed him again.  He cupped her mons, as denuded as he was, still, and then lightly traced lower, but where there ought to have been a slit, a space with a tight bundle of nerves waiting for love, there was nothing.  There was just thick padding and then two lips around a space…

“Ohh, don’t tease.  Please!”

He pressed a kiss to her thigh and gently slipped two fingers inside her body.  He wanted this to be good for her, but he just didn’t know how.  He was on the right track if her reactions were any indication; in reply she lifted her hips, trying to pull him deeper.  He probed gently and found that odd ring of tissue buried deep inside, a ridge he could gently flick with his fingers, making her gasp and open for him.

Oh.

 _Oh_.

He moved back up, kissed her once more as he settled between her legs, and then gently pressed himself in to her.  A moment to adjust and then he began to thrust, shallow at first but she hooked her legs around his waist and tried to pull him in deeper.  Finally he let himself sink into all that heat, popping over that ridge, making her cry out with pleasure.  When he pulled back that ring tugged on the flange around his head, and he nearly lost it right there.

After that it was easy, and not long before she tightened around him and he heard that sweet soprano sing something ancient as the tides as she shuddered through her climax. 

Then his world exploded around him.

* * *

 

“Is your back warm?”  He asked sometime after.

She pressed back against him as he spooned around her.  “I think it always will be now.”

* * *

 

“I want to try something next time.”  She said sometime later.

“Mmm, what do you want to try?  He asked as she rolled over to nuzzle into his chest.

“It’s called the Qu…Spencer!”

“What?”  He groaned as she answered by reaching down to where he was hard again.  “What?”

“That usually takes a few days.”

“Not for Earth men.  But we don’t have to…”

“But I want to.”  She pressed her hips against him to make the point.

“All right then.  What do you want to try?”  He kissed her so she’d know he was in full agreement.

“It’s called the Queen’s Throne.”  He felt her smile against his lips as she rolled him under her and straddled him.

“We can try that.” 

* * *

 

“If I had known,” he murmured into her hair.  “How cruel they were being I don’t think I could have born it.”  Without waiting for her to be ready the only way through that ring of nerves would be force.  He could just imagine…

“It’s all right now.”  She shushed him.  “We survived.”

“Yes, we did.”

“And this is good.” 

“Yes, it is.”

* * *

 

Later it was his turn to murmur to her.  “I want to try something.”  He said.

“Again?”

“If you want to.”

It was her turn to groan.  “Yes.”  So he guided her over onto her knees, her hands to the headboard and he tucked up behind her.  “Like this?”

“Yes.  So I can do this.”  He cupped her breasts in both hands and gently entered her, “And this.”  As he bent and kissed the fine membranes on the back of her neck, nipped at one, and was rewarded with her arching her back and taking him deep.

This third time she came so hard she had to bite down on her arm to muffle her cries lest she wake Kitta.  “No more.”  She finally panted as they fell together to the bed, shaking.  “No more.”

“Awww.”  But he was teasing.  Three times in one night was enough to satiate them both.

* * *

 

“It amazes me.”  She replied.  “How two men, any two men, can be so alike and so different.  How the same parts can cause such pain and yet bring such pleasure.”

“I think it has to do with love.”  He looked up at where the pearly light was just starting to tease at the windows.  “We still have some time to sleep.  What?”  He asked as she laughed.

“You’ll see.” 

 


End file.
